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Bipolar Awareness Day is observed

Currently, 10 million Americans live with bipolar disorder. For them, life feels incredible one day, hopeless the next.

As part of the National Alliance on Mental Ilnessâ annual Mental Illness Awareness Week, today is Bipolar Disorder Awareness Day. The aim is to increase awareness of bipolar disorder, reduce stigma and minimize the impact on those with the disorder.

Eric Arauz was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1995, and has a family history of mental illness. Arauz said he deals with the disorder every day of his life. He says after being diagnosed with this mental illness, he was told there was treatment for it. But he says, like many others with mental illness, he was not compliant.

According to the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine only 27 percent of those living with bipolar disorder receive treatment.

WMNF asked Dr. Kenneth Duckworth from the National Alliance on Mental illness, if part of that low diagnosis percentage is due in part to doctors not being fully educated on the illness themselves.